Speculation: who will get the remaining Olympic spots?

As you all know the first of two roads for skaters to qualify for the 2014 Olympics is closed. Come this September, the humble Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstorf, Germany will be swarmed by skaters desperately fighting for those precious remaining spots to Sochi 2014. A total of 6 spots in the men, 6 spots in the ladies, 4 spots in pairs and 5 spots in Ice Dance will be awarded.

Though the event is months away, it will be fun to speculate based on performances from the 2012-2013 season who will get those spots.

A couple of things to keep in mind.
1. Nations who already received spots at 2013 worlds in a discipline can not receive an additional spot for that discipline through Nebelhorn. These spots are only for skaters who's national federation has not being given a spot already. If you want to see who has qualified already, see link below.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_..._Qualification
2. If a team/skater qualifies a spot and has not achieved the required technical minimums, they have until sometime in January 2014 to achieve it.

To get this post going let me say who I think has a chance.
In the men's, based on performances at 4CC and Europeans, I expect The Philippines (Christian Martinez/chris Caliza), South Korea to get spots. The competition is quite tight. Other nations I can see squeeze through include Ukarine, Denmark, Poland, Monaco, Belarus, Italy, Romania, Hong Kong China, Israel and Switzerland.

In the ladies, I'm looking forward to seeing Kiira Korpi getting a spot for Finland. I also am expecting Australia (Brooklee Han finished 21st at Worlds) and Georgia (I really hope Elena Gedeshvanishvili can get over her issues with nerves) to get spots. A birth for Belgium, Brazil, Slovakia, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Norway, Turkey, Luxembourg or even Mexico (Reyna Hamui is now training in Detroit) is possible as well as others.

For Pairs, I can only see European teams qualifying. I see spots for four of these nations: United Kingdom, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Belerus or Austria.

Out of all the disciplines, ice dance is probably the most open. Though there are only five spots on paper, due to the Lithuanian Government refusing Isabella Tobias to give her citizenship, there is essentially six spots available if Tobias and Stagninunas can't go. There are so many teams who I can see contending its not funny. Nations who can get a place include Spain, Japan, Uzbekistan, Australia, Czech Republic, Finland, Israel, Hungary, Turkey, China, Estonia, Poland, Slovakia, Georgia, Belerus, Switzerland and Austria.

The most interesting group in the Wikipedia article is the list of the countries in the running for the 10 Team Trophy spots. Total placings will only be known after the GPF & JGPF this fall. Top 10 countries then will qualify

rank

Team

2012–2013

2013–14

Total

1

Canada

3826

3826

2

Russia

3479

3479

3

United States

3305

3305

4

Italy

2709

2709

5

France

2495

2495

6

China

2467

2467

7

Germany

2356

2356

8

Japan

2293

2293

9

Spain

1610

1610

10

South Korea

1424

1424

11

Kazakhstan

1080

1080

12

Ukraine

1065

1065

13

Sweden

1047

1047

14

Great Britain

1038

1038

15

Austria

986

986

16

Czech Republic

894

894

In dance, I have heard that Tobias & Stagniunas still have a chance of getting her citizenship straightened out.

Other than T&S, I expect Japan (the Reeds looked really good at WTT and just missed the cut at Worlds) & Australia's O'Brien & Merriman (missed qualifying for worlds by 0.5 points, and were just behind the Reeds at 4CCs) may qualify at Nebelhorn, and perhaps Turkey (given that the Turks, Agafanova & Ucar, were totally slammed at World Championships by a music penalty in the SD for music they had been using all season without penalty, Rybak's Fairy Tale, as not being a polka. It caused both their Yankee Polka sequences to be level 1, plus the extra deduction, and so they did not qualify for the LP.) My guesses for the other 2 spots are more speculative: perhaps China (if Huang & Zheng are healthy in the fall) & Czech Republic (Mysliveckova & Brown, provided Brown gets Czech citizenship and they skate well at Nebelhorn).

Fun observation comparing the Australian team to other European teams.

Lets take a look at the Senior B's results for the 2012-13 season
the Australians competed at 5 Senior international B's that season. Let us compare their results with teams of the 'same ability' (I am not talking about teams who are obviously better but teams which had similar results to the Australian team) that did qualify for the 2013 worlds.

1. At the US Classic, they defeated the Polish team (Plutowska/Gerber) who qualified for the Worlds.
2. At the Ondrej Nepala, the Australians were not defeated by teams of 'same ability' who later qualified for worlds. Instead they beat them all- the Czech (Mysliveckova/Brown), Slovakian (Testa Csolley) and Hungarian (Nagy/Fejes) teams
3. Later that week at the Ice Challenge, The Czech team marginally defeated the Australians by 1.86pts but the Australian managed to defeat the for a second time the Hungarians (Nagy/Fejes), The Polish team (Plutowska/Gerber), Slovakian teams (Testa/Csolley). Also they defeated the Estonians (Shtork/Rand) and the Turkish team (Agafonova/Ucar).
4. Later at the NRW trophy, the Australians placed 8th but none of these 'same ability' teams who I talked about beat them. Instead for a second time the Australians defeated the Turkish team.
5. Finally, at the Mentor Nestle Cup in Poland, the Australians placed third behind the stronger and better established Ukranian and Japanese teams and yet again they beat the Turkish team (for a third time) and the Polish team (for third time).

I'm still fascinated by the team event. It raises so many questions and possibilities.

If I've been following correctly, the top 10 make the Team Event competition, correct?

Let's say South Korea maintains it's Top 10 spot. So, does that mean that an ice dance team from South Korea would be permitted to skate in the team event, even if they don't make the cut for the dance event competition?

I really hope so too. He's worked so hard and its always hard to see him have a rough skate like at the 2013 Four Continents. If he can land all his jumps, especially that 4T, he will definitely become a contender. And if he does get a spot, an adrenaline shot of confidence will be injected into Australian Skaters.

i've had a read at the rules. The answer is yes BUT a nation needs to have a competitor in at least THREE of the disciplines in the team event to qualify. From my understanding, Korea has Male and female skaters and 1 Ice dance team (Finished 20th at Junior worlds-not sure if they meet the age restrictions though), so yes they can compete.

Thank you for the link to the rules. By my reading, to enter into the Team Event, a nation must have skaters from at least three disciplines entered in the individual events. If you look at who has already qualified, then I don't think they can get to 10 Teams eligible to participate. So, in order to get to 10... the remaining individual qualifications become critical.

Here's my list of nations who have already qualified for the individual events necessary for entry into the Team Event, culled from the Wikipedia link:

Japan (need a pair or dance team... are the Reeds not eligible? Confusion...)
Estonia (need a pair or dance team)
Sweden (need a pair or dance team)
Ukraine (need a man or pair)

Everyone else has qualified in only one event, and will need to earn spots in two events at Nebelhorn.

Am I reading this correctly?

My interpretation of the participation in the team event differs a little bit. As far as I understand the rules, for competing in the OWG team event, a team must compete in at least 3 disciplines. B u t I think this does not mean, that a team need qualified teams in 3 events. There is a rule that teams without qualified skaters in the individual disciplines may benefit of an “Additional Athletes Quota” and enter into the Figure Skating Team Event 1 Skater/Couple without qualification (http://isu.sportcentric.net/db//files/serve.php?id=4263). I think, this means that teams, which only have qualifiers in 2 events plus 1 additional Athletes Quota, could enter a team because so, they are able to compete in 3 disciplines.

This means Japan would be eligible (by the way Reed/Reed most likely will qualify in Nebelhorn regularly), Korea not eligible because no qualifiers in 3 events (only a little chance to earn men qualification in Nebelhorn)

But theoretically the 10 teams for OWG are possible (although I don`t believe, that every nation who theoretically can enter a team, will opt to do that)

Did Brooklee Han secure a ladies spot for Australia with her showing at Worlds? I can't remember, but she skated really great there, and has been very consistent this whole season. I would love to see her compete at the Olympics to make the Aussies proud, especially after Cheltzie Lee skated so well in Vancouver as an alternate. Brooklee is a very nice skater and I feel she could easily be scored higher.

Did Brooklee Han secure a ladies spot for Australia with her showing at Worlds? I can't remember, but she skated really great there, and has been very consistent this whole season. I would love to see her compete at the Olympics to make the Aussies proud, especially after Cheltzie Lee skated so well in Vancouver as an alternate. Brooklee is a very nice skater and I feel she could easily be scored higher.

Unfortunately, she missed out by one place (typical treatment for Australian skaters). When you add the top 20 and the additional spots that were won up, Brooklee just got pushed out. But if she keeps it together at Nebelhorn and maybe adds a triple flip (or a triple lutz) to her artillery, she will get a spot for sure.